Japan-related news links for today:

LDP Battered: Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has accepted his ruling Liberal Democratic Party has suffered “utter defeat” in polls for the upper house of parliament. [Link]
Low Turnout: Voter turnout in Sunday’s House of Councillors election is down over the last election across the country, according to the Internal [...]

It would seem that the creators of the Australian TV show Big Brother 3 are fans of the “human tetris” YouTube clips from Japan’s Tunnels No Minnasan no Okage Deshita, because they’ve produced a crude copy of it:

I’m guessing that they paid for the rights to remake this skit?

A classic Japan Times article from 2003 is currently on the frontpage of reddit.com: journalist Shun Akiba, who has written a book suggesting that there could be a secret city beneath Tokyo. Since it’s a pretty interesting story that we’ve never blogged about on Japan Probe, I thought I’d share it for those [...]

Let this commercial for a new Richard Gere movie, which aired on TV last night during the Japan/Korea soccer match, be a reminder to you all that swearing in English is A-OK on Japanese TV:

Ah, how refreshing it is to unexpectedly hear somebody say STFU during a commercial break!

Voters are going to the polls today, so let’s watch this commercial for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that aired on TV last night:

After watching Prime Minister Shinzo Abe give a pretty un-charismatic performance in that “we promise we’ll fix our massive pension f^ck-up” commercial, it’s not very hard to see why the LDP [...]

Japan-related news links for today:
Today Is Election Day: Japan’s ruling and opposition parties wrapped up campaigning yesterday for one of the most hotly contested parliamentary elections in years with virtually the same message to the voters — their opponent can’t be trusted to run the government. [Link]

Bad Sign: Embattled Prime Minister Shinzo [...]

With new details continuing to trickle out about the problems that occurred at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station after it was damaged by an earthquake on July 17, Japan’s Foreign Ministry and Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry is attempting to help tourism by attacking foreign media coverage of the leak:
The ministry said the leak [...]

According to this news report, North Korean merchants regularly travel to Chinese border towns and buy large amounts of counterfeit brand products, which they sell to meet a growing demand for the “brands” in their country:

Some of the brands that are currently popular in the DPRK:

Nike
The Nice Face (A copy of The North Face)
Rolex
Louis Vuitton

The [...]

Here’s the newest in the series of Dandy House commercials in which Keisuke Kuwata plays a Japanese gentleman at upscale international parties:

And for those who haven’t seen them before, the previous two commercials in the series:

Pompadour, known as リーゼント in Japanese, is one of Japan’s interesting adopted subcultures and has had a fairly strong influence on different aspects of society. Anyone that has read manga or watched anime has almost definitely seen a character or two “rocking” this style. Also it was (maybe still is) popular, or associated [...]

Japan-related news links for today:
Nikkei Plummets: Tokyo stocks plummeted Friday on selling spurred by an overnight plunge in U.S. shares and the yen’s sharp appreciation against other major currencies, dragging down the benchmark Nikkei to a nearly three-month low. [Link]

New Scandal: A political support group for Agriculture Minister Norihiko Akagi and a [...]

Yesterday morning, Fuji TV’s Mezamashi TV introduced the American drama Heroes to Japanese television audiences. Here’s the clip:

They focus on actor Masi Oka, who plays Hiro Nakamura in the series. Oka, who immigrated to America when he was six and has since become an American citizen, is described a a very [...]